Six Feet Under
by Singing A Grey Lie
Summary: Growing up as an orphan can be hard - how about an orphan chosen to be one of the smartest people in the world?


**December 15th, 1991**

_"Almost three years ago, you were left with a baby boy. On the card left with him, his name was 'Mihael Keehl'. This is his younger sister, Franka Keehl."  
__She wrote down the baby's name quickly, finishing it off with a looping curl on the last letter of Keehl. This is the last time she would deliver a child to an orphanage. She lay down the squalling infant girl on the stone steps and fled into the night.  
__An elderly woman stepped out into the night and scooped up the baby. She read her card and sighed, walking back into the orphanage and going to find Mihael._

**July 26th, 1996**

So I guess I was pretty normal for a little girl in an orphanage. I liked dolls and dresses and pink and princesses. I wanted friends and it wasn't too hard to make them. I had a protective and loving older brother - although he had a tendency to work on impulse.  
I don't really remember too much of our first home, although, I'm sure if you asked Mihael he would be able to tell you a few things. I know that, when I was five, we left there and moved to Winchester in England to a place called Wammy's House and it was for "gifted children." I'd never really thought of either of us as "gifted," but I'd never really been around too many more children our age.  
When we got there, we were given aliases - Mello to my brother and Farro to me. They explained to me that "Farro" was a spin off of "pharaoh," and they explained to me also about the ancient royalty and how they were believed to be descendants of gods. Our real names were not to be given and we were not to ask the names of the other children, either.  
It wasn't much of a problem for me - there were so many smart children my age, I was in heaven. I remember the first friend I made, and he stayed my best friend for a very long time.  
I was holding my brother's hand, looking at the big mess of kids in the room with my head turned sideways and gawking.  
"If one of us doesn't get the courage to go talk to someone, we'll never make friends," Mello said to me with a blank look.  
"You first," I volunteered him without changing the expression on my face.  
And yet neither of us moved.  
I let go of my brother for a second to fix my doll's hair. "She needs to look more presentable," I said as an excuse to him. She wasn't new but she wasn't old, either, but she desperately needed a brush, which I substituted for my own fingers. I had gotten her as a gift about two years ago and loved her to the point of excuse use and abuse.  
"Hey," I heard a boy's voice other than my brother's. I looked up and realized Mello was protectively close but the other boy didn't seem to notice. I really couldn't tell what colour his eyes were - they were covered by orange-tinted goggles. His brown hair framed his face perfectly and he was a few centimeters taller than me.  
"Hi," I muttered with a failed excuse for a smile.  
"I'm Matt," he stuck out his hand like he was a professional hand-shaker.  
"I'm Farro," I returned, shaking his hand. "This is my big brother - Mello."  
Mello smiled - and not a pathetic smile like mine - and shook Matt's hand too. "You guys want to play a video game?"  
I looked at my brother and grinned - for real this time. "Sure," we said in unison.  
And there was the first friend we'd made.

And then there was my second friend...

"And then Hanah gets some tea, too..." I muttered to myself with a small smile, pretending to pour the abused doll some tea. Tea party was pretty much played by myself, since nobody else wanted to play with me. 'Hanah' slumped forward in her chair and tumbled to the ground. "Oh, Hanah, are you not feeling well? The tea will make you feel better, I promise." I picked up the limp and cold body and carefully rearranged her back into her frilly pink chair. With my fingernails, I managed to grab a hold on the tiny cup and hold it to her stitched mouth.  
As I went to say something else to 'Hanah,' I heard a voice that wasn't my own. "Um...Can I play dolls with you?" I looked up to a girl about my age. Her eyes were a shy but bold red and she had long black pigtails in her hair, along with a colourful scarf wrapped around her neck and a doll in her hands.  
"Do you have an invitation to the tea party?" I said with a scornful look.  
She jumped a little. "U-um, no..."  
"Let me ask Hanah. It's _her_ birthday party anyway." I held the doll up to my ear and pretended like she spoke to me. "Uh-huh. Yea. Ok, ok." I sat the doll back down. "Hanah says you're allowed into the party. Please, have a seat." I smiled.  
She sat down across from me, arranging her doll in one of the frilly chairs. "By the way, I'm Bebe."  
I bit my lip, causing my wet teeth to stick to my dry lip, and smiled in a dorky way. "I'm Farro."

**August 15th, 1998**

I had a good time at Wammy's, I must say, I don't think I had too many bad memories from the place. I hung out with Mello quite a bit. Matt taught me lots of things about video games, like Sonic and Mario. I was amazed at how many cultures - Italian, Japanese, Korean, and even animals - could come together into little moving pictures on the TV that you could control with buttons. Bebe and I played dolls frequently. We would dress Hanah and Bebe's doll - Toni - into little pink dresses and pretend like we were at a tea party with the Queen of England. It really was a lot of fun.  
I did have a few strange memories, though. Not necessarily bad, but...

"Guys, stop," I moaned, "I really don't want to play..."  
"Come on, Farro, please?" Matt asked, holding a football.  
"I don't wanna play," I repeated, crossing my arms. The lake was a few feet behind me and it cast an eerie glow over all of us. Mello was inside.  
"Farro, it'll be fun," Bebe said with a smile.  
"I don't wanna play!" I said again, frowning. "I don't know _how _to play."  
"You just kick the ball," said Matt again. "See?" He rolled the ball at me gently through the grass.  
"No..." I cringed away from it. I know it wasn't rolled hard nor was he trying to hit me, but I really didn't want to play football. I picked it up and threw it back at them. One boy picked it up and rolled it back at me, not as gently as Matt had. "Hey! Stop it!" I whined, taking a few steps back away from it before picking it up and throwing it again. "Don't throw it at me this time!"  
And yet, they did. One girl picked it up and dropped it. As it landed on her foot, she swung her leg back and up. With laser-like qualities, there was a black-and-white blur coming directly at me and the football slammed into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and stealing my balance. I flailed my arms momentarily with a tiny gasp for air before I felt the small 'crack' as my back made contact with the water.  
I panicked at this point. I didn't know how to swim and this water was really deep. As if conveying my panic, I heard Bebe scream and start calling for my brother. I tried to pull myself up for air but couldn't and only succeeded in pulling myself down farther. Through blurry eyes, the water looked like a silver film and I watched with water seeping into my throat as silver mushroom-shapes of precious air went left and right quickly up to the surface. Sparkling fish swam across my field of vision, along with other sparkling things that weren't real. The longing for oxygen hummed deep in my chest, causing me pain I never thought possible.  
I felt my back make contact with the ground of the lake and a cloud of tawny silt made a pillow around me as the plants caressed my arms and legs, inviting me to sleep. I closed my eyes as they, too, began to hurt and I lost consciousness as a muffled splash made itself known.

My eyes opened as I spat up water and muck, and I couldn't tell what dribbled beneath my eyes - tears or more lake water. I felt two arms underneath me. As my eyes cleared, I saw a face looking down at me. His hair was white and his eyes were an undefinable shade of gray. He, too, was dripping wet and I realized that this boy dressed in white pajamas was my rescuer. I tried to smile at him, but ended up with water bleeding through my lips again. He still didn't smile.  
"Move, Near!" I blinked my eyes slowly to find the almost angelic presence of the boy replaced by my blonde brother. "Farro, are you alright?"  
I swatted away his attempts to help me and slowly turned myself over to spit up the last of the water. I caught a breathe of cool air and felt a bit more relieved. The girl who had kicked the football frowned at me. "I'm sorry for hitting you into the lake," she said and I could see the genuine concern in her eyes. I couldn't manage speech so I sufficed with a smile and nod.  
Sitting up, I put my hand to my chest. My pink dress was ruined with muck. I took several deep breaths before turning to Mello. "Wh-who," I wheezed, "who was that?"  
"That was Near," he said simply before stand up and wrapping his arm under my arms and helping me stand. "Come on, we gotta go get you changed and washed up."  
"Near..." I muttered, searching everwhere for the white-clad mystere. "I'll have to remember to thank him tomorrow..."  
"Don't worry about him. he'll be fine, he won't need thanks. We need to make sure _you're_ ok." There was a bit of scorn in my brother's voice, but it quickly washed away as Matt caught up to us.

"Is that him?" I whispered to Bebe.  
"Who?" She blinked at me, her back to the boy in white.  
I gestured with my eyes but she didn't seem to understand exactly what I was hinting to. "Back there," I said finally, "with the dice. Is that Near?"  
Bebe didn't even turn around. "Oh, yup. Near's the only one around here with dice."  
"Oh," I said quietly. "Well," I chimed brightly as I stood, "time go finish what I wanted to do!"  
"Uh..." She stared at me with wide eyes as I stepped over our tea table and over to Near.  
"Excuse me?" I leaned over his shoulder with a smile. "Are you Near?"  
He turned halfway from his odd sitting position on the floor. "Yes."  
"I'm Farro! I wanted to say thank you for helping me the other day. I'm the one you dragged out of the lake." I smiled at him. Near blinked a couple of times.  
"Oh. You're welcome." His answer was really that simple. It was disappointing, really, but at the same time, it made me want to sit and ask him more questions, to see if there were any liable stimuli I could use in verbal form to bring out any more than three words from his lips.  
"I'm sorry I didn't get to thank you when I woke up."  
"That's fine." It's not that he seemed shy or antisocial or unkind - he was his own when he spoke. As if he maybe saw no reason to speak more.  
"That's a really impressive tower you built," I nodded to the dice tower he had sitting in front of him.  
He looked back at it as if he forgotten it was there. "Thank you."  
"So, um, maybe we could-"  
"Come on, Farro, I'm hungrrrryyyy..." I felt Bebe tugging at the sleeve of my red nightdress. "Let's go get dinner..."  
I licked my lip and looked back at Near with a fleeting smile. "I'll see you around." With that, I walked with Bebe back to the kitchen, and for some unknown reason, I couldn't get my mind off Near.

I think, after that day, I became strangely addicted to being around that boy. I found out what wing his room was in and every morning I would go in and wake him up so he wouldn't miss breakfast. At least, breakfast was my excuse. I just wanted to see him. Not to mention, I thought he was kind of cute. He didn't seem to mind too much. Sometimes I think he was almost grateful I was in there - someone to talk to.

**January 30th, 2005**

Sooner or later, we learned about L - a man who had lived at Wammy's and become a succesful detective along with the world's smartest man. Suddenly, all of us children were pressured to be like L, to become that successful. The "second, third, and fourth" Ls were decided and it came out as Near would be L's first successor, Mello and I would be the second successors, and Matt would be the third.  
Mello, of course, was outraged at being second to Near. I didn't really mind, I mean, hello? We were chosen to be the third successors to the smartest man in the world. How is that NOT impressive even if we're not the very next?  
Sooner or later, Mello and I were informed that we would be working with Near on a mysterious murder case that they called "The Kira Case." I was overjoyed - me? A detective? The idea was thrilling. And working with Near was even better. Being 13 by now, there were a lot of strange feelings I got that I didn't understand - the most frequent being a fluttering emptiness in my stomach and a small warmth on the sides of my face whenever I was around Near.  
Somehow, through all this joy and opportunity, my brother was offended by the idea of working with his now-sworn enemy. So much so that he decided we - the two of us - were leaving for America to work on the case ourselves. He whispered something to me once about the Mafia, which shocked me a tad, but I swallowed down my fear and decided what I had to do.  
I told him I was going shopping - I had earned a little bit of money from helping an elderly woman. Both of these were true, but there was one part I hadn't told him. As I entered the electronics store, I was surrounded by thousands of possibilities, but I walked up to the man at the cash register. I was barely tall enough to look over the tall counter.  
"What's the cheapest model and plan that I can take overseas and activate today?" I looked straight at him.  
This seemed to amuse him. "Well, that one over there," he said, pointing to a small dark grey cellular phone, "but you need parental consent, little girl. Do you happen to have any?"  
"I haven't the slightest idea who my parents are, _sir_," I said rather rudely. "I'm an orphan at Wammy's. Unfortunately, he couldn't come with me today, but he gave me a signature to prove that it's OK for me to buy one." Over the dark and speckled surface in front of me, I slid him a piece of paper with a forged signature on it.  
"Right," he cleared his throat and went to retrieve a contract and a phone model. "Here you are...let me just..." He stared into a computer screen while typing and clicking things. With a smile, he traded the phone for the thirty dollars I had. After that, I had ten left. I turned on the phone and stared into the glowing screen.  
"How do I find my number?"  
He pointed out several buttons to me and, as I pressed them, a small, ten-digit series of numbers was revealed to me. "Thanks." I scribbled down my 'signature' and left. I went to another store to get a new outfit with my remaining ten dollars - a purple and blue striped boy's shirt (I thought it was cute so I bought it) and a simple pair of denim shorts.  
When I returned to Wammy's, everyone was having fun outside, playing games and the like. I managed to sneak inside the building without anyone stopping me. I sped down the halls, knowing that, somewhere in these corridors that I had known for so long, my brother would be waiting to drag me away, onto a plane and to ruin my life - and possibly end it as I knew it.  
Near's room was unlocked and open. I pushed it open gently and, realizing he wasn't in there, I found something to write on and something to write with. On it, I wrote: "_Mello is making me leave with him to America. He didn't want to work with you. I do. This is my new cellphone number. Call me in two days, an hour and a half before bed time._" And I also left on it the new number. I sighed deeply, holding the small strip of paper close and praying he would heed my words and find me a suitable detective and business partner. I left it on his pillow and stuffed the phone in a pocket of the denim shorts, in turn putting them in a small bag Mello had given me to put my few items in.

"So what did you buy?" He asked as I came in the room.  
"Just an outfit. I spent some money on a bus there and back. Have you ever been on a public bus? They're so weird." I held up the outfit for my brother to see.  
"Isn't that a boy's shirt?"  
"I thought it was cute. I haven't seen a boy wear purple anyway." I pouted, stuffing it back in the bag.  
Mello laughed quietly and smiled at me. "Come on. We have to get going. We don't want to miss the flight."

After successfully going through security and sitting for twenty minutes on an immobile airplane with a complete stranger between us, we finally took off - slowly - down the runway. I felt a weightlessness in my fingertips as the air was swept underneath the flying machine and we were no longer on the ground. I closed my eyes, feeling a little sick and listening to the oddly pleasant voice of the flight attendant telling us what to do in case of an emergency. I glanced at Mello momentarily to find he was buried in a book already. I sighed quietly and turned my face to the window.  
In only a few moments I was staring at heaven - a cracked and broken white desert of fluffiness with a blue backdrop that would make an angel cry. As the blue faded to yellow, then to red, then to indigo and down to black, I found my eyes slowly closing.


End file.
